Marcus Jones
8/2/2018
Is America Really America?
Langston Hughes, a major African American writer, is committed to telling the truth about the
lives of black people through his passionate poetry. For instance, in his poem “Let America be
America Again”, Hughes, being less than sanguine, claims that in reality people who possesses
power often deprive others of America’s – the land known of equality, liberty, and freedom
opportunities. Not only have those in power deprived lower class American access to the
opportunities promised by the America value system, they have replaced it with the relentless
pursuit of money, sex, and power. Hughes successfully executed his claim to be true by
contributing tone, connotation anaphora, abstract language and personification.
Hughes possessed a very angry and resentful tone throughout his poem “Let America be
America Again” to help him express his own experience in America allowing him to build
credibility. He believe that his experience as an African America has “never been equal for him.”
(Line 15) Hughes felt that he was never completely free in this “homeland of the free.” (Line 16)
Hughes also gave a sense of a positive tone in his poem. Then directly after purposely use
diction to betray the claim. Let it be “that great strong land of love,” Hughes said. Express the
little sense of hope he had in America but, Hughes being the poet laureate of the Harlem
Renaissance, he used the thought of “Kings connive” and “tyrants’ scheme”(Line 8) to point out
the reality of the people being taking for granted instead of been give equal opportunities.
Langston Hughes also demonstrated his ideas and gave his examples by using abstract
language. He used abstract language to give the words he used a bigger meaning and use
them in ways that most people would not use. He gives things and objects a bigger meaning.
Also he uses “faith” and “pain” as a way to show what they
are feeling, that they have faith and they do not know what to do. He uses pain as a way to show how the whites treat them and the type of life the “Negros” live. “Negros” is also an
abstract use of language, he uses Negro to show how they were called by the rest of the
people, and he uses it as an insult to the African American culture. Abstract Language helps the
poem and makes the reader think
and can be a different meaning to each reader, because the word could have many different
meanings.
Hughes had to use allot of personification to make the poem a little more interesting. He uses
personification to show what he thinks of the land and the people. Hughes gives America life, people and saying that they should
leave him alone, and let him be. He also gives human characteristics to other things, for
example to Liberty.
personification to these in depth words gives the poem a special touch. This is only one of the
many poetic devices Hughes uses in “Let America be America Again”.
Furthermore, Hughes continues to stir up a patriotic picture of America as well as to make the
reader question this picture by uses connotation in this poem. Was American a "dream" for
everyone? Lines such as "But opportunity is real, we
breathe" (Line 13-14) make the reader question the idea of opportunity for all because as
Hughes states, "there has never been equality for me" an appeal to emotion as well. "I am the poor white, fooled and pushed
apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scares.
These images are very vivid. The idea of scars connotes all the violence and beatings of
slavery, which makes the reader even more passionate. These lines pull at the heartstrings of
any reader with a conscience as we are forced to remember some of the atrocities that are also
America.
Throughout the poem, Hughes uses rhetorical questions to cause the reader to pause and think.
For example, "The free? Who said free?" (Line 53) makes the reader question that exactly the
free in this country are. With rhetorical questions
But just as quickly, Hughes provides answers, "Not me" (Line 53). He answers the question
quickly for the reader.
The most powerful aspect of the poem
anaphora. By using this repetition and parallel structure, Hughes gives the reader many ideas
right in a row to think about. In the beginning of the poem the repeated phrase "let it be" tells the
reader right away that America is not what it was supposed to be. In between, in parenthesis for
emphasis, is the repeated idea of "America never was America to me" (Line 5). And to answer
the unspoken question of to whom America was unfair, Hughes uses the anaphora "I am the"
and continues to list all of the people who were never able to reap the benefits of the American
Dream. This he does in two different stanzas and Anaphora is used for emphasis, and Hughes uses it well to emphasize the
idea of inequality.
The poem "Let America have idea of equal opportunity for all in America. He clearly shows the reader that there never was
such an idea of equality for all through such rhetorical device as connotation, rhetorical
questions, and anaphora. He emphasizes all the people who have not had access to the
American Dream and gives each group of people a voice in this poem. However, Hughes ends
this poem on a note that is truly American-the idea of hope. He hopes that America can be all
the things it was supposed to be for all. He is not about to give up on the idea of the American
Dream. America will never be the America that it used to be but because of the people
that live here don’t let it. He achieved this by using contributing tone, connotation anaphora,
abstract language and personification and personal experiences. He used tone to help express
his feeling bout America. He used connotation to express the patriotic picture of America. He
used anaphora to express the important of this topic. He used abstract language to make
readers think and to use more in depth ideas, his use of personification made the poem more
interesting and difficult, and his history shows you that he really had a motivation to make this a
good poem and a poem that would touch and change people’s thoughts. Imagine being them
coming to America to have a better life, but it ends up you live worse than where you used to
live. “Let America be America Again.”